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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Wednesday, December 18, 2024
Lawmakers face a packed agenda when the new Congress begins on Thursday, starting with finding a resolution to the government shutdown that hit USDA, the Interior Department and other departments and agencies in December.
The government shutdown that is now in its second week short-circuited the USDA’s implementation of the 2018 farm bill just as it was getting launched.
The Agriculture Department is closing county Farm Service Agency offices after Friday and will suspend publication of some new reports and take others offline with the partial government shutdown set to drag into the new year.
New disclosure requirements finalized by USDA for biotech foods will exempt products with inadvertent amounts of genetically ingredients as well as vegetable oils, sugar and other foods where the DNA of genetically engineered crops can’t be detected.
The Senate Agriculture Committee has advanced three USDA nominations toward final floor votes, but at least one appears unlikely to win confirmation before this Congress adjourns.
The new farm bill largely preserves the commodity and conservation programs but it includes some significant improvements for dairy producers and also would raise price floors for sugar and other commodities.
Farm bill negotiators are looking to wrap up talks that have become embroiled in a debate over forest management as well as longstanding issues such as eligibility rules for commodity programs.
One in every three producers surveyed around the country say the difficulty of finding enough workers is making it harder to operate their farms and ranches and hindering their ability to expand.
Cotton growers are striking back against claims that they're getting better treatment from Washington than other commodities, releasing an analysis that says cotton's federal support this year will be lower than it was under previous farm programs.
The average farmer probably won’t notice anytime soon that the 2014 farm bill has expired, but producers who try to sign up for some conservation programs could be turned away, and some commodity groups will have to go without some trade promotion funding on which they have counted.
